Keynote Speakers
Bill Ballhaus
Chairman, Chief Executive Office & President
Blackboard
Bill Ballhaus is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Blackboard. He is deeply committed to leveraging Blackboard’s innovative technologies and services in order to partner with the global education community and enable student and institutional success. Blackboard’s core values of integrity, excellence, innovation and accountability resonate deeply with Bill. As a third-generation aerospace engineer, he learned early on the importance of leading with absolute integrity, without fear of failure and with a focus on solving customers’ toughest challenges. At Blackboard, these values translate into helping learners, educators, institutions and companies thrive in a complex and changing environment.
Kathy Vieira
Chief Strategy & Portfolio Officer
Blackboard
As Chief Strategy, Portfolio and Marketing Officer, Kathy Vieira is responsible for the development and execution of Blackboard’s corporate, portfolio and marketing strategy, ensuring Blackboard continues to deliver and demonstrate innovative solutions that align with client, partner and industry needs. In this role, Kathy oversees key functions including corporate strategic planning, business development, portfolio and platform strategy, business line leadership, product and partner management, and marketing and communications.
Lee Blakemore
Chief Client Officer & President, Global Markets
Blackboard
Lee Blakemore is Chief Client Officer and President of Global Markets. In this joint role, he acts as a champion of Blackboard’s clients, representing the needs of faculty, students, school administrators, IT professionals, instructional designers and professional learners who have partnered with or use Blackboard products and solutions. He also leads Blackboard’s global go-to-market and business operations organisation. By leveraging the company’s broad portfolio of capabilities and market expertise, Lee and his team enable institutions and organisations of all types to solve their most complex challenges by putting learners and world-class technology solutions at the heart of everything they do.
Dr. Mark David Milliron
Senior Vice President and Executive Dean of the Teachers College
Western Governors University
Dr. Mark David Milliron is an award-winning leader, author, speaker, and consultant who works with universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, foundations, corporations, associations, and government agencies across the country and around the world. He serves as Senior Vice President and Executive Dean of the Teachers College at Western Governors University (WGU), a nonprofit university founded by 19 U.S. governors more than 25 years ago. WGU has since become a beacon of instructional innovation, affordable access, competency-based education, and workforce connection, serving over 130,000 full-time students nationwide. Founded with support from the U.S. Department of Education, WGU’s Teachers College is now the largest college of education in the U.S., serving more than 30,000 teachers, leaders, and other education innovators in all 50 states.
Arun Pradhan
Co-Founder
Modelthinkers.com
Arun is a curious, empathetic, and geeky human. Beyond that, he was once a tenured lecturer before returning to commercial engagements and, today, he’s a globally recognised learning, performance and innovation strategist, having developed solutions for some of Australia’s largest companies. He was recognised by the AITD as Australia’s Learning Professional of the Year in 2017 and has developed a reputation for his work in enabling learning agility and using design thinking to co-design innovative performance solutions. He has broad experience in emerging technologies and is an unashamed geek when it comes to learning science, cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, marketing and anything that provides insights into how people think, behave and change. Arun has previously created the now free Learn2LearnOnline.com webapp, that supports people to develop learning agility. And, most recently, Arun co-founded ModelThinkers.com, a project dedicated to delivering the 'big ideas from the big disciplines.'